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	Pittsburgh Diocese Background Checks Anger Some Volunteers Associated Press, carried in Centre Daily [Pennsylvania] July 1, 2007 http://www.centredaily.com/news/state/story/140941.html Pittsburgh — Pittsburgh's Catholic diocese is running background checks on its 30,000 volunteers, angering some of its members and prompting at least two to quit their goodwill work. The checks are mandated by the Catholic Church, but some volunteers said they feel the step doesn't address the issue of sex abuse and invades the privacy of people who often have little contact with children and teenagers. Dr. Mark Stehlik, a lector coordinator at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Pittsburgh's Shadyside neighborhood, where two volunteers quit in protest over the screening process, said he does not believe they were hiding anything. "For a community, meaning the Catholic community, that has been built up on the backs of willing parish volunteers, there had better be a really good, verifiable return to justify putting anything onerous in the way of that volunteerism," Stehlik told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "In my mind, that return is just not there. We are paying a huge price for a very small likelihood of something actually happening," he said. In response to numerous sex scandals involving priests, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops decided five years ago that each diocese must do criminal background checks on volunteers who come into regular contact with children. The information is to be saved in a database. In the Pittsburgh diocese, more than 11,000 of the church's 30,000 volunteers have already completed the applications. The diocese is covering the $7 fee for all applications completed by July 31. Nationally, 1.6 million staff and volunteers in the Catholic Church have been screened. To address the privacy concerns that have been raised, the diocese has opted to save the data collected at a company with high-level security in Austin, Texas. Ron Ragan, director of the Office for the Protection of Children and Young People in the Pittsburgh diocese, said he understands that some volunteers are offended by the request. "We need to ensure that those adults who are acting in the name of the church and have regular contact with children have nothing in their background to suggest that they may be a threat to children," Ragan said. Despite the diocese's efforts, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests does not support the move to run background checks on volunteers. Barbara Blaine, the group's founder and president, said the church should instead hold bishops responsible for the offenders that have been allowed to remain in the ministry. She said a few people have reported molestation by volunteers, but it pales in comparison to the thousands who report abuse by priests. Church Mutual Insurance, a company that insures 96,000 congregations, urges running criminal background checks on volunteers. It advises its clients that 50 percent of sexual abuse cases in religious institutions involve volunteers. David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, said volunteers are a risk group. But he said there is no evidence that such screening protects children. "Most of the people who abuse kids do not have records, so the vast majority of people are not going to be removed from the risk pool by those checks," Finkelhor said.
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